I started working on Coach Sommer's book early december. Once Christmas break started, i came home and basically trained BJJ nonstop since i had nothing else to do. during this time of very extensive training, i kept up with the gymnastics as much as possible without overtraining (although i did overtrain a little). generally this consisted of the gymnasticbodies WOD and some extra work on statics. my static holds have all been progressively getting better, but i found myself pretty stagnant in my planche development. getting past the flat tuck just seemed to not happen.

today i walk into the gym and out of nowhere i'm hitting 10-15 second holds on straddle planches like i've been doing it for weeks. i remembered that in the book he talked about 6 week stretches going from overload to underload before the CNS adapted. this seems to be for real.

this may not be a big deal to some, but for a grappler who doesn't particularly need this skill, it's awesome.

Garrett Smith

01-20-2009 06:37 PM

Quote:

my static holds have all been progressively getting better, but i found myself pretty stagnant in my planche development. getting past the flat tuck just seemed to not happen.

today i walk into the gym and out of nowhere i'm hitting 10-15 second holds on straddle planches like i've been doing it for weeks.

Was there a break/rest period between "stagnant" and the straddle planche?

I just took a week off from OL lifting and continued my gymnastics, my gymnastics definitely benefited from the OL layoff (but I had been making progress before as well).

Neal Winkler

01-20-2009 06:49 PM

Grissim,

How do you feel your gymnastics strength training has effected your strength while grappling?

I do BJJ as well, and I'm doing the GB WOD + weights for lower body. In six months or so it will be interesting to see how much carryover there is to grappling.

My instructor said he rolled with a gymnast once and while he was very strong he still wasn't as strong as some wrestlers he rolled with.

Steven Low

01-20-2009 07:05 PM

You're hitting up straddle planches already? Sick.. get some vids of that up. 10-15s is no joke. If you can do that you can probably do a full planche.

Grissim Connery

01-20-2009 08:35 PM

Garret - there was a semi week of rest. This past saturday i had a grappling tournament (OGC near cincinatti). the monday before that i had a hard workout with a lot of lever work. on tuesday i think i did light handstand and planche work amongst some other light stuff and jumproping. then i recovered until the tournament.

honestly one big thing that i think helped a ton was that i started doing a lot of hand stretching. i could hold a handstand on paralletes well into a minute. i would normally drop down cause i would get kinda bored at that point. at the same time, i had the hardest time holding static handstands. i came to the conclusion that my shoulders must be stable enough, so the problem lies elsewhere. a short week or 2 of hand stretches, and all of the sudden i'm holding stable static handstands as comfortably as the paralletes.

this could also be a big correlation to the newfound abilities in planches. i probably should have thought of that earlier hah. i was just so psyched after my workout.

neal - it's helping me keep in more stable positions. i focus a lot on who has the stronger body position. for example, i used to wonder what was better, an overhook or an underhook (let's say from standup). the truth is that neither is better, but really it's all about whose body is stronger. and what determines whose body is stronger is the distance the elbow is from the body (also head positioning of course, but let's ignore that for now). the closer the elbow to the body, the stronger the body will be. i feel that working front levers for example really teaches you to keep your elbows strong and tight to your body. thus you naturally don't reach for grips that aren't there, and thus you dont' overextend yourself and get weak.

if you think about when somebody gets a good triangle, the arm is pulled way across the guy's face. the distance of his elbow from his body is really far. thus his whole body (spine mainly) gets weaker. his shoulder girdle gets weaker, and you push his shoulder into his neck and cut off the blood. if you're trying to escape the triangle, people always yell to posture. obviously you are posturing out of his guard, but if you think about what's going on with the skeleton, posturing realigns the spine and puts it into its more naturally strong state. if you can suck your elbow down before you posture, this will tighten your shoulder girdle and make your body stronger. thus you can use this to help straighten your spine. or if you posture first, you can use this gain in strength to help pull your elbow down.

dont' confuse the "strength" i keep referencing with muscling stuff. i'm talking about when you first lock up with that guy who's like 130pounds and he feels like a rock cause he's so stable with body positioning. essentially BJJ teaches me when the body is strong and when it is weak. i use gymnastics to drill these strong positions. sucking your shoulders into the proper positions during a handstand will teach you to keep them tucked properly when you're rolling. thus your body gets stronger, and you're not muscling anything.

it's all about form and technique.

steven - i'll see if the guys at my bjj club will be willing to film me. i get hesitant to do too much gymnastics stuff there though cause i hate when i do something cool with workout related stuff, and then some better grappler who can't do it just smashes me afterwards. one time i did a little bit of kettlebell juggling, and then i got tapped hard.

Neal Winkler

01-21-2009 04:41 AM

That's a very interesting take Grissim. When my instructor told me about the gymnast he rolled with, I made the comment that, perhaps he did not know how to apply his strength to BJJ.

And I didn't mean just muscling things either, but you know how there are some people, usually ex-wrestlers, that when you roll with them they just "feel" rock solid.

Garrett Smith

01-21-2009 06:07 AM

Grissim,
I think you may be right about the hand flexibility/strength.

My training partner and I both started doing prehab wrist work before our gymnastics and we noticed all of our hand-balancing stuff get better right off the bat.